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University of Florida

College of Public Health & Health Professions Syllabus

CLP 7934, Special Topics: Directed Reading-Neuropsychology of Aging

Section Number: 073F, Fall: 2016(3 credit hours)

Meeting time/place: n/a (online class)

Delivery Format: Online
Course Website or E-Learning:

Instructor Name: Michael Marsiske
Office: HPNP 3179
Phone Number: (352) 273-5097
Email Address:
Office Hours: By appointment

Preferred Course Communications:Email

PrerequisitesAdmitted, in good standing, to the Graduate School at the University of Florida. No other pre-requisites apply. Students are expected to seek out additional foundational reading and materials in areas that are challenging for them; students are invited to ask course instructors for recommendations.

PURPOSE AND OUTCOME

Course Overview. This directed reading course introduces students to contemporary theory, method, and findings regarding normal cognitive aging, neuropsychology (based mainly on research with brain-damaged individuals) and cognitive neuroscience. The readings will consider normal and pathological cognitive changes, potential etiologies and comorbidities, as well as recent thinking on intervention approaches for late life cognition. The selection of topics and instructors also reflects the unique profile of expertise among University of Florida Division of Neuropsychology faculty..

Relation to Program Outcomes.This course counts as a “Neuropsychology elective” for doctoral students in Clinical and Health Psychology. It also satisfies one of the elective requirements of the Graduate Certificate in Gerontology.

Course Objectives and/or Goals

1.The student will be able to describe and synthesize major normal and pathological cognitive changes in later life

2.The student will have familiarity with the major behavioral and neuroscience approaches used in the study of neuropsychological aging

3.The student will explore major explanatory models and potential co-morbid factors in the prediction of late life cognitive change

4.The student will become familiarized with contemporary approaches to intervening with late life cognition, and will be able to summarize emerging data needs in this nascent area.

Instructional Methods

This online course is a directed reading course. Students will access personal-use electronic copies of all assigned readings in this course (online, in the UF Canvas system). Each week, students will be expected to summarize, synthesize and integrate readings (along with outside material they choose to bring in) so that they can explain readings to others. This will take the form of a weekly executive summary produced by the student (see “Assignments” below for details).

DESCRIPTION OF COURSE CONTENT

Topical Outline/Course Schedule

Specific weekly readings are listed in the appendix to this syllabus

Week / Date / Topic(s) / Assignment due date (11:59 pm)
1 / 8/25 / Normal cognitive changes / 9/1
2 / 9/1 / Neuroimaging/neuroscience methods and aging / 9/8
3 / 9/8 / Memory aging / 9/15
4 / 9/15 / Visuospatial aging / 9/22
5-6 / 9/22, 9/29 / The Dementias, 1 & 2 / 10/6
7 / 10/6 / Possible explanations: White matter accounts / 10/13
8 / 10/13 / The cognitive neuropsychology of depression in the elderly / 10/20
9 / 10/20 / Stress-diathesis models of cognitive aging: Sample case of post-operative cognitive dysfunction / 10/27
10 / 10/27 / Cardiovascular function and its role in cognitive aging: Sample case from the laboratory of Ronald Cohen / 11/3
11 / 11/3 / Stroke: Cognitive sequelae / 11/10
12 / 11/10 / Parkinson’s disease: Cognitive sequelae / 11/17
13 / 11/17 / Interventions 1 / 12/1
14 / 12/1 / Interventions 2 / 12/8

Caveat:

The above schedule and procedures in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances. Any changes will be announced in class, and the student is personally responsible for obtaining updated information regarding those changes.

Course Materials

Each week is associated with readings (empirical articles, meta-analyses, review chapters, theoretical papers, fact sheets, consensus statements). These are detailed below in the weekly calendar, and electronic copies will be provided at the class elearning site. The specific weekly reading list is given in the bibliography in the appendix of this syllabus.

Technology

Students are required to access all materials in E-learning, and to submit all materials in Microsoft format (Office, Powerpoint) in Elearning. Software can be obtained at Readings are provided in Adobe pdf format, and can be accessed via the free AdobeAcrobat reader

For issues with technical difficulties for E-learning please contact the UF Help Desk at:

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●(352) 392-HELP - select option 2

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Managing e-learning technical issues

  • If you cannot upload a document due to technical problems (e.g., if elearning is down), you may e-mail Dr. Marsiske. The timestamp on your e-mail will serve as the time submitting. In such cases, please upload your assignment to Canvas as well, once the technical issue is resolved. We also require you to contact the UF Helpdesk and obtain a “problem ticket number” to further document your good-faith attempts to resolve the technical problem. Official text:
  • Don’t wait until the last minute. Know when the [assignment] is due and leave yourself plenty of time.
  • [Finish your assignment] during Help Desk hours ( so that if you encounter problems, there will be someone available to help you.
  • Make sure you have a dependable internet connection.
  • Use a current, updated browser and operating system
  • Make sure you read your instructions carefully before beginning the assignment.
  • If you encounter any unexpected behavior (error messages, inability to log in, etc.,) take a screen shot of the problem (Print Scrn) and paste (CTRL+V) into a program like Word or Paint. Save this file. This is important so that your instructor knows your problem is legitimate, and to assist the UF Computing Help Desk in helping you fix the problem.
  • If you encounter problems that prevent you from [completing the assignment], immediately call the UF Computing Help Desk at 352-392-4357. Keep the ticket number for future reference.
  • When you are done with your [assignment], be sure you submit it! If you do not see a successful submission message, your test is still in progress. You will not get a grade until you submit.

ACADEMIC REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING

Assignments

The grade for the class will be based on the weekly Executive Summaries. Each Executive Summary will be weighted to count for the exact same proportion of your final grade, even if varying numbers of pages-to-read are given to each week.

  1. Submitted Executive Summaries. Submit via Canvas.

The Executive Summary should:

  1. Be between 2 and 6 pages (this will vary on how dense your presentation is)(For the Dementias combined weeks 5 and 6, this should be doubled!)
  2. The goal is for it to be an INTEGRATIVE SUMMARY of themes and ideas in the readings of the week, and should also include critiques (‘unanswered questions’, ‘methodological issues’) that emerge from your critical reading of the material.
  3. Your approach to reviewing the articles to to provide a summary/synthesis/integration/analysis of what you have read
  • the executive summary should not be a point-by-point review of each article, but should provide the “big picture”
  • the summary should be at the level of “what you would tell an educated layperson about this week’s materials”
  1. Use as few words as possible. Images (graphs, tables, figures from the readings, as well as your own summary charts, bulleted lists, or images from the internet—properly credited) should be the centerpiece of these summaries. Your general goal should be to summarize the material in the style of an infographic (see below).
  2. You are encouraged to draw on materials outside of the required readings (e.g., Wikipedia definitions, illustrative images, background info not contained in the readings). However, this must not come at the expense of materials in the readings. The key point of these assignments is to show that you have read, understood, and synthesized the week’s materials. So that should always be your main goal.

Executive summary resources

The resources that follow are not specific to the in-class exercises, because we haven’t found good models for these. Please be assured that in the early weeks, as we figure out the optimal format, grading will be lenient and comments will help shape the product. A major intent of this assignment is also to allow you to be creative and flexible in how you approach your summaries.

  • (I think this one might be pretty good)
  • Something more texty:
  • Completely not research, but nicely segmented thematically in a way I could imagine for articles:
  • Later pages of this (too long) one are research …

Grading

Requirement / Due date (11:59 pm) / % of final grade (must sum to 100%)
Week 1 Assignment / 9/1 / 7.14%
Week 2 Assignment / 9/8 / 7.14%
Week 3 Assignment / 9/15 / 7.14%
Week 4 Assignment / 9/22 / 14.32%
Week 5-6 Assignment / 10/6 / 7.14%
Week 7 Assignment / 10/13 / 7.14%
Week 8 Assignment / 10/20 / 7.14%
Week 9 Assignment / 10/27 / 7.14%
Week 10 Assignment / 11/3 / 7.14%
Week 11 Assignment / 11/10 / 7.14%
Week 12 Assignment / 11/17 / 7.14%
Week 13 Assignment / 12/1 / 7.14%
Week 14 Assignment / 12/8 / 7.14%

The grading rubric for each executive summary is as follows, and comments upon grading will help explain the points assigned.

0 / not attempted
7 / “mercy point” (e.g., you submitted something, but there is evidence of minimal effort, many of the major items of the week were not included in the executive summary)
8 / Acceptable summary, but clear room for improvement (e.g., too text-dense, too many of the main ideas from the articles missing, little attention to design or readability, organizational structure is poor or unclear, too long – not enough of a summary)
9 / Very good summary, with minimal room for improvement (e.g., small areas of deficit, like a few missing main ideas, ratio of text to images could show improvement, too much reliance on acronyms or jargon without explaining)
10 / Excellent summary, with little or no room for improvement (all major key points from the articles are covered, level of summary is thorough but not exhaustive, good balance of summary text to illustrative graphics)

When you submit your assignments to Canvas, it is essential that the first word of your executive summary be your LAST NAME (e.g., Marsiske_Week01_NormalAging.docx). After 2 reminders about this, a 2-point deduction will be made on each homeworkfor which these naming conventions are forgotten. See below for additional policy on late submissions.

Note that after your PowerPoint has been graded, it may be submitted to other class members for review and mutual learning.

Point system used (i.e., how do course points translate into letter grades).

Points earned / 93-100 / 90-92 / 87-89 / 83-86 / 80-82 / 77-79 / 73-76 / 70-72 / 67-69 / 63-66 / 60-62 / Below 60
Letter Grade / A / A- / B+ / B / B- / C+ / C / C- / D+ / D / D- / E

Please be aware that a C- is not an acceptable grade for graduate students. A grade of C counts toward a graduate degree only if an equal number of credits in courses numbered 5000 or higher have been earned with an A.

Letter
Grade / A / A- / B+ / B / B- / C+ / C / C- / D+ / D / D- / E / WF / I / NG / S-U
Grade
Points / 4.0 / 3.67 / 3.33 / 3.0 / 2.67 / 2.33 / 2.0 / 1.67 / 1.33 / 1.0 / 0.67 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0

For greater detail on the meaning of letter grades and university policies related to them, see the Registrar’s Grade Policy regulations at:

Exam Policy.

No exams for this class

Policy Related to Extra Credit

For student evaluations of teaching ( all members of the class will be awarded one (1) bonus point if 80% of the enrolled class completes evaluations, and two (2) bonus points if 100% of the enrolled class completes evaluations.

Policy Related to Make up Exams or Other Work

For homework, late submissions are not encouraged. Late submissions will be accepted for up to 7 days, but with the following penalty schedule:

With regard to missing or incomplete assignments, the following policies apply:

  • Coordinator/instructors will not contact you about missing or incomplete assignments. It is your responsibility to check that the correctSummary has been submitted to Canvas on time
  • It may be possible to avoid a late penalty IF YOU CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS IN ADVANCE. You should email the course coordinator and explain what issue (e.g., bereavement, illness) necessitates lateness. In some cases, documentation may be requested. If a lateness allowance is agreed to, this applies to a single assignment only. It does not allow you to delay future assignments. Note, conference attendance or doctoral qualifying examinations or thesis/dissertation defenses do not constitute valid lateness excuses.
  • If your assignment is late, you will lose 10% each day up to the seventh day, after which a zero grade will be assigned. Each assignment is initially graded up to a total of 10 points according to the rubric (before it is converted to 6.67% or 13.33% of your grade, depending on assignment). Thus, if an assignment is worth a maximum of 10 points, you will lose 1 point for each late day. “Late” begins one minute after the due time (e.g., an assignment due at 11:59 pm is considered late at midnight). Penalties are as follows:

1 minute to 24 hours late / 10% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
1 day + 1 minute late to 48 hours late / 20% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
2 days + 1 minute late to 72 hours late / 30% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
3 days + 1 minute late to 96 hours late / 40% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
4 days + 1 minute late to 120 hours late / 50% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
5 days + 1 minute late to 144 hours late / 60% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
6 days + 1 minute late to 168 hours late / 70% of maximum deducted from achieved grade
7 days + 1 minute late or longer / 100% of maximum deducted from achieved grade

NOTE: UPLOADING THE WRONG DOCUMENT IS SAME-AS-LATE, even if you have documentation that you completed the document on time. It is your responsibility to verify that you have uploaded the correct document. (You should open or download your uploaded homeworks and double- or triple-check that you have uploaded the right one).

  • There will be no exceptions to this policy.
  • If you have uploaded the wrong document, and Canvas does not allow you to correct this, you should IMMEDIATELY send the correct document to Dr. Marsiske via email.

Any requests for waiving of late penalties due to technical issues MUST be accompanied by the ticket number received from LSS when the problem was reported to them. The ticket number will document the time and date of the problem. You MUST e-mail your instructor within 24 hours of the technical difficulty if you wish to request a make-up. The Appendix to this syllabus includes additional details for managing technical issues.

Incomplete grades:

An incomplete grade may be assigned at the discretion of the instructor as an interim grade for a course in which the student has 1) completed a major portion of the course with a passing grade, 2) been unable to complete course requirements prior to the end of the term because of extenuating circumstances, and 3) obtained agreement from the instructor and arranged for resolution (contract) of the incomplete grade. Instructors assign incomplete grades following consultation with Department Chairs.

Policy Related to Required Class Attendance

There is no specific attendance requirement for this online class, but all weekly assignments must be submitted, without exception. All classes are bound by the UF Attendance Policy.

For information regarding the UF Attendance Policy see the Registrar website for additional details:

STUDENT EXPECTATIONS, ROLES, AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INPUT

Inclusive Learning Environment.

Public health and health professions are based on the belief in human dignity and on respect for the individual. As we share our personal beliefs inside or outside of the classroom, it is always with the understanding that we value and respect diversity of background, experience, and opinion, where every individual feels valued. We believe in, and promote, openness and tolerance of differences in ethnicity and culture, and we respect differing personal, spiritual, religious and political values. We further believe that celebrating such diversity enriches the quality of the educational experiences we provide our students and enhances our own personal and professional relationships. We embrace The University of Florida’s Non-Discrimination Policy, which reads, “The University shall actively promote equal opportunity policies and practices conforming to laws against discrimination. The University is committed to non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations, genetic information and veteran status as protected under the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act.” If you have questions or concerns about your rights and responsibilities for inclusive learning environment, please see your instructor or refer to the Office of Multicultural & Diversity Affairs website:

Expectations Regarding Course Behavior

Students are expected to complete all work by the deadline stated, and to contact the instructor in advance with any problems related to completing course assignments.

Communication Guidelines

A discussion board exists in Elearning for any open questions about course materials and assignments. You are welcome to post any questions. Please be respectful, and follow UF Netiquette guidelines. . Please do not use the open forums for complaints or criticisms. Please do not post your suspected “answers” for any questions, so as not to interfere with the independent problem solving of other students.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to act in accordance with the University of Florida policy on academic integrity. As a student at the University of Florida, you have committed yourself to uphold the Honor Code, which includes the following pledge:

“We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.“

You are expected to exhibit behavior consistent with this commitment to the UF academic community, and on all work submitted for credit at the University of Florida, the following pledge is either required or implied:

“On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment.”

It is your individual responsibility to know and comply with all university policies and procedures regarding academic integrity and the Student Honor Code. Violations of the Honor Code at the University of Florida will not be tolerated. Violations will be reported to the Dean of Students Office for consideration of disciplinary action. For additional information regarding Academic Integrity, please see Student Conduct and Honor Code or the Graduate Student Website for additional details: